Up a little bit later today and headed off to find a Waffle House for breakfast – guess what? – we got lost and couldn’t find one!! So we ended up in an IHOP near Universal. I remember going to IHOP loads on my first ever trip over here nearly 20 years ago.

Have to say this time we were so not impressed and it wasn’t what we’ve come to love about eating out over here – and boy do we love eating out over here!! We had a miserable waitress who told Amelia off for looking at and smelling the different flavoured syrups for the pancakes on our table and when the – very small – meals came out no cutlery for Amelia, she had to go and ask for it herself. I ordered a breakfast but asked for no eggs as I have an allergy and was told they can’t be substituted so I basically ended up paying 8 dollars for 2 small pieces of bacon and a hash brown!! The food itself was OK but the bad service made it a not very good experience to the day. $40 that cost us. I don’t recommend it at all, if you want a good value breakfast then Waffle House all the way – if only we could find one! They were literally everywhere yesterday why is it when you want to find something you can’t!!

We got to Universal at around 10:30 and to be honest considering it is Labor Day weekend it wasn’t actually that busy until we got to the turnstiles. Inside the park we went to get my Access Pass which I didn’t think I’d get after the rules had changed but it turns out I do so that made our day good again 🙂

They do ask a few questions about how your disability affects you and that’s how they determine what pass you need. It works really well and wait times less than 30 minutes allow you to go in the express pass lane any longer you get a return time.

We went straight to Seuss Landing one of my favourite lands. I love it. First ride was Cat in the Hat 🙂 We didn’t manage to do Islands on our last trip so it was exciting to be back. We went on the Trolley Ride around Seuss landing too which gives you an amazing view of the whole park.

There’s a cool little show in Seuss with all the characters which we missed by a few minutes but we did get to the meet and greet which was really exciting and only maybe 2 minute wait for each of them. Super speedy!! It was actually really quiet most of the rides were walk on with less than 15 minute wait.

Headed over to Marvel Super Hero Island for Spiderman ride and also to meet the man himself who took a liking to Amelia ‘the girl who can fly’ and we ended up with our print with him free 🙂

We talked before we left about getting the photo package at Universal and the very lovely cast member at the Spiderman photo op gave us the 14 day package for the price of 3 which was awesome. It’s definitely worth it and I’ll go into more detail about where you can use it etc in a later blog.

No visit to Islands is complete without a soaking on the Popeye ride, we have some fab video of how soaked we got, we may as well of just had a shower that’s what we looked like. Then on to get even more soaked from Rocky and Bullwinkle. One thing we noticed about that ride was how much it really needed a bit of TLC, it didn’t look as clean as the other rides and it looked really unloved, apart from the length of the ride and the way that side of things worked it just reminded us of being at Chessington…

We then made our way over to Hogsmeade which was insanely busy, my only complaint about all of the Wizarding World is how thin all the walkways seem to be you just feel like there’s too many people too close to you and you’re bottlenecked in. Now it may be an illusion because the buildings are pretty high compared to some of the others and obviously we all know that’s what London/England in general is like but a couple more inches would make a big difference!!

We rode forbidden journey which I love, I don’t however love the spiders in it as you can see from the photo above which gave everyone a good laugh!!

After that off to citywalk to try out Toothsome one of our most anticipated eateries and it is out of this world in terms of ambience and service. We loved it even with the $100 price tag however in the grand scheme of things the food itself wasn’t that amazing, the puddings were though so maybe just go there for that side of things. I will be going back before we come home to purchase some sweets to bring home. Not as presents for people, all for me 🙂

We ended our evening with a visit to Blue Man, I won’t bore you again with all the info on how awesome it is, I did a pretty extensive blog on that a while ago which you can read here Blue Man Group – Is it worth it? What I will say about the show is no matter how many times you do it you cannot get bored, it’s still as hilarious as the first and second times I saw it and I cannot stress enough how much of a good time you will have at it and look you can meet the Blue Men after…

Oh and guess what happened on the way home? We got lost. Again.

Another early morning tomorrow for us, breakfast with Lilo and Stitch 🙂

It’s always nice in Orlando to spend an evening catching a show and currently the 2 most popular and most well known are Cirque Du Soleil at Disney (Catch it quick it finishes in December) and Blue Man Group at Universal.

So many people ask about Blue Man and want to know what it is and if it’s worth watching. In a word. YES!!!

I am a huge fan of theatre shows and I know it’s a really bold statement but Blue Man is one of the most incredible ones I’ve seen. I could watch it again and again and again and not be bored.

You’ll find it in it’s own theatre just outside the entrance to Universal Studios, it’s relatively small so you will have a good view in any area. There are ‘poncho seats’ where you will get wet and covered in all manner of things including cereal…

It’s fully accessible and there are wheelchair seats if you need them but please book in advance.

It’s cheaper to buy before you go and most of the ticket resellers will sell them, tickets are around £40.

But what is it about? Anyone who’s had the luck to see this show will know how hard a question this is to answer because, quite frankly, it’s a bit odd!! But I shall give it a go…

The gist of it is that these ‘Blue Men’ are aliens who have come to our planet and are trying to understand how we live. That’s basically it. In a nutshell. Doesn’t sound too exciting but I promise you it will be one of the greatest (and strangest) things you ever see.

They use music, art, percussion, lots of paint and mime which I normally hate!

You’ve probably seen little bits of them on variety shows and things on TV where they paint things by spitting paint on a canvas, that is a VERY small part of the show and isn’t really a good representation of the things you see in it.

It is one of the funniest shows I’ve seen and they’re really really clever in that they’ve managed to create something that EVERYONE can understand. On my last trip the youngest was 6, the oldest 60 and we all laughed, at the same time. That doesn’t happen very often.

The show is really visual, some of the comedy is the old slapstick stuff that your grandparents love. They don’t speak. It’s incredibly clever the way that they manage to convey whatever message that they want without saying a word. There is a lot going on and it’s split into different ‘scenes’

There’s a bit of audience participation which starts literally as soon as you get in the theatre when you’re encouraged to read out loud from a screen which you may find your name on…

They do also come out into the audience and will stand right in front of you and stare at you, remember they are aliens who know nothing about us and what we are. It can be a little odd but ultimately you will laugh at it.

All in all it’s a family friendly hilarious, colourful and fun show. There’s a little video below to give you a little idea of the kind of thing that they do but honestly you must see this for yourself. You will not be dissapointed!

It’s just over an hour so it’s not a long show and there is no interval. There’s 2 shows most days but obviously check the schedule.

The men will be around after so you can meet them like I did, they don’t hug you though they just put a blue thumb print on your head… I didn’t get one of those thankfully.

Make sure you go, it’s incredible!! And if anyone has seen it and has a way to actually describe it then I’d love to hear it!!